


Crown City Haunts

by inviernos



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Ghost Stories, Pre-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 09:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11803599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inviernos/pseuds/inviernos
Summary: Cor was the last person Gladio expected to be trading ghost stories with over a campfire.





	Crown City Haunts

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Day 2 of FFXV Week.
> 
> I used the themes: Camping, and Cor Leonis.  
> This involves ghost stories (because Halloween in August) and I don't think it's _that_ creepy, but please feel free to avoid or wait until daylight to read if you need to.

“Aww, dude!  Why’d you stop there??  I’m always up for a good ghost story.”  Prompto’s eager smile was suitably lit up by the campfire in the center of the three young men.

“You sure you want me to tell _this_ story though?”  Gladio asked once again.

“Just tell it, dude!”  Prompto was the most excited to hear the story.  “I haven’t heard much about the actual haunts of the Crown City.”

Gladiolus could’ve sworn he heard Cor grunt from the side of the haven in his own attempt to tell Gladio to just get on with it, tired of hearing Prompto whine. 

The older man hadn’t been subtle about his aversion to having to accompany them on their camping trip.  Gladio had been in the conference hall when he’d referred to it as babysitting a bunch of high schoolers (to which Gladio stopped himself from reminding Cor that he had been out of school for over a year now).  King Regis did agree that a trip out of the city would be good for the boys, but since Ignis would be missing the trip due to a badly timed case of the flu, he wanted extra security around aside from Gladio, and Cor would have to do.

“Don’t know if Noct over here would appreciate it though.”  Gladio prodded, noticing his friend had gone very quiet since the subject of ghosts had been brought up.

He was going to tell the story either way, scaring Noct would just be extra incentive. 

“I’m not stopping you, dude,” said Noctis in his calmest voice.

“Well, gather ‘round children and I shall tell you a tale…” 

Gladiolus picked up the empty water bottle that sat in front of him and began tossing it in the air.  He cleared his throat and looked into the campfire, getting ready as if he were about to make a grand speech.  He was ready to tell this story as if it was his.

He looked from Prompto to Noctis, and almost laughed at how hard Noctis was trying to seem indifferent.  Prompto on the other hand couldn’t have looked any more thrilled, wrapped in his sleeping bag and leaning in slightly closer to him with wide eyes.

“This didn’t happen to me, but you guys know Pelna, right?  One of the glaives?”  Gladio waited for the boys to nod before he went on. 

“He told me this one day after training, and it freaked me right out…so I guess there are these woods behind an abandoned apartment building way _way_ in the heart of the city.  Anyway there’s this story that a woman was murdered back there and haunts the woods, and that led to the apartment building becoming abandoned.”

“Had to have been one hell of a haunting if people didn’t wanna live there anymore,” said Prompto.

“I know,” Gladiolus continued.  “So one night around Halloween he goes there with some friends…” 

_Ahem._

Gladio flinched and dropped the water bottle, barely choking down a yelp as he looked up behind him to see that Cor had made his way over, closer to the rest of the group.

“What?” the older man asked, unfazed.  “Some of us just want to hear the story.”

“Right, uh…”  Gladio shook it off, purposefully ignoring the laugh he heard come from Noctis’ direction and remembered his place.

“So right, anyway they go down to this place and as soon as they turn down the street it’s just super obvious this is it, right?  There’s buildings on either side of the street with lights on in the windows and signs of life, but as they start getting closer they see dead end signs and it just gets darker and darker and they can only kind of vaguely make out trees, but since it’s nighttime it’s just like…a wall of darkness…”

“So they keep going and….”  Gladio started to feel apprehensive, more and more aware of Cor standing over him.

“Uh…Marshal?  Sir?” he craned his neck up to look at the older man.

“Hmm?”

“Uh…are you going to tell King Regis…?”  Gladio asked.

“I thought it was just a ghost story?” Cor raised an eyebrow, the rest of his face gave nothing away.

“Don’t worry, Gladiolus.  The dumb things the glaives do on their time off are none of my business.”

“Thanks,” Gladio mumbled, looking back down into the campfire.

“Man, do you really think my dad cares that some of the glaives went to a haunted house?”  Noctis added.

“…I guess you’re right though,” said Gladio.  “Sorry.”

 “So uh,” he cleared his throat once more.  “Yeah they start to get closer to the woods, and it’s fenced off.  But that’s not gonna stop a group of glaives, y’know?  So they hop the fence, and Pelna told me right as his feet hit the ground on the other side he saw a bright white like, orb thing?  And it just _zoomed_ from between the trees, but of course the other guys he was with didn’t see it.”

“Pfft.   Yeah right, probably just some idiot in the woods with a flashlight…” Noctis mumbled.

“Just let me tell the story.”  Gladio softly (as he could) bopped Noctis on the top of his head with the empty water bottle.

Cor shifted his weight from one leg to the other somewhere behind Gladio and he was immediately reminded the older man was still there.

“Anyway, he didn’t say anything and he didn’t really want to be there in the first place, but he didn’t wanna be _that guy_.  But he wasn’t the only one who saw weird shit that night.  One of the guys was looking back at the building in front of the woods and his face just turned sheet white.  And they asked what was wrong, and he said he saw something moving in the window in this supposedly abandoned building.  And it wasn’t just like a cat moving in front of the window or something.  He was looking up at one of the higher floors and said it looked like a person.”

“Ooooh, spooky.”  Prompto shook both of his hands wrapped in his sleeping bag with glee.

“Right?  And their features were obscured just…like the shape of a person, but no like obvious facial features or anything, so that’s fucking creepy…And instead of being smart and leaving they decided to head even deeper into the woods.”

The next words were right on the tip of Gladio’s tongue, but he stopped.  It had gotten too quiet.  He looked straight past and over Prompto.  Either retelling this story was getting to him, or the shadow of something was moving around outside the haven.

“What’s up?” the blond asked.

“…Nothing.”  Gladio shook his head.  It was probably just an animal or the wind picking up.

“But anyway…” he started speaking again, and purposefully avoided looking at the spot in the darkness.

It was his job to be on the lookout for danger, but it had to be just his emotions about the story getting to him; making him more anxious than needed.

“They started walking deeper into the woods and shit starts to get real.  Like they’d take a break and be standing still but would hear leaves crunch around them.”

Gladio stopped speaking and picked his head up; again the clear sound of shuffling just outside the haven caught his attention.  This time he had to say something.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Hear what?” Noctis asked, a tinge of irritation to his voice.

“Just tell the story,” he went on.  “You’re a bad actor, you know?  Quit trying to scare us.”

“I’m not…” Gladio paused again.  There it was again; faint rustling somewhere in the distance and then what sounded like a set of footsteps slowly moving along the ground.

“There!” he insisted, his eyes wide.  “Didn’t you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?”  Prompto asked, as he looked out into the darkness suspiciously.  “Dude, cut it out!”

“I’m serious!”  Gladio yelled.  “Something out there is getting closer or something just…you’re all making too much noise.  Cor didn’t you hear that?”

“I don’t think I heard anything over all the noise you’re making, Gladio.”

“Just…let’s sit here for a second and see if anyone else hears it, okay?”  Gladio pleaded.

Cor walked back towards the edge of the haven to silently watch for signs of movement.

“Fine then, but I swear if you’re just messing with us…” Noctis said bitterly.

“I swear, I’m not.  Just…shh.”

Several moments passed.  For a moment all Gladio could hear was his heartbeat in his chest.  He played with the drawstrings on his hoodie as he listened for sounds he secretly hoped he wouldn’t hear again.  Whatever it was could have only gotten closer as they sat and waited. 

Unfortunately, Gladio’s prayers had been answered and the others never heard anything resembling footsteps.  Only the sounds of nocturnal animals and an errant breeze running through the trees could be heard. 

Gladio couldn’t help but be a little aggravated.  He had been so sure he heard something that wasn’t just an animal, but at the same time he was relieved.

“Man, maybe we should stop for now?  If you aren’t just fucking around, this stuff is making you paranoid,” said Noctis.

“Besides, it’s probably just an animal or the wind or something.”

“Look, I _know_ I heard something,” Gladio insisted.  But as stubborn as he was he knew he wasn’t going to convince the others, especially not Noctis.  He could tell he hadn’t wanted to be out here listening to ghost stories anyway.

“Trust me, kid.  _If_ anything’s out there it isn’t getting past these runes.”  Cor tried to reassure him.

“I guess,” Gladio mumbled in agreement, even though he wasn’t quite convinced.

But maybe the others were right, even though he enjoyed hearing ghost stories maybe the environment was influencing him.  This was the perfect atmosphere for it, after all.  A dark moonlit night, accompanied by the crackle of a campfire and a breeze that swept through the trees whenever it wanted made for the perfect setting to be scared.

Maybe it was just time for him to go to sleep.

*

Gladio stretched, bringing his arms up and above his head until his hands met the side of the tent and he remembered just where he was.  He bolted upright, looking around him, relieved to see the prince and Prompto were still asleep beside him. 

Maybe he had just been too paranoid earlier.

But all that he knew was that right at that moment he needed a drink of water and the cooler was still outside.  Gladio carefully made his way around his sleeping friends and out of the tent.

He was only slightly surprised to see Cor still sitting outside in front of a waning fire.  He wasn’t surprised that he had never gone into the tent to rest, but had to wonder if the man even needed sleep in the first place.  Gladio was also relieved that the older man had been outside this whole time.  Cor could probably handle whatever Gladio had been hearing…if he had been hearing anything at all, but if hours had passed and Cor was still out here, it couldn’t have been a problem.

Gladio cleared his throat to alert the other man to his presence, but he had a feeling Cor already knew he was there.

Cor slowly turned around, both eyebrows raised slightly.

“What are you doing up?”  The older man’s tone was curious.

“Marshal,” Gladio nodded respectfully, “just needed some water.”

Gladio now felt wide awake and made his way to sit across from Cor at the campfire instead of back into the tent.  He wasn’t afraid of Cor, per se, but he did command a certain level of respect and Gladio wasn’t sure if he was showing enough sometimes.

They sat in complete silence, the only sounds between them were those of the fire dying down until Cor spoke up.

“So what _did_ Pelna see in the forest?”

Gladio had been so focused on drinking his water and purposefully not listening to any of the ambient noise around the haven that he almost choked.

“Sorry?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“The lady in the woods?”  Cor chuckled at Gladio’s reaction. 

“I’d heard the story before…planned on checking it out myself but haven’t had the chance to yet.”

“Sorry sir,” Gladio couldn’t stop the smile from showing up on his face.  “Guess I hadn’t pegged you for a ghost hunter.”

“Well,” the older man shrugged, “we all need interests outside of the Kingdom, don’t we?”

“Sure,” Gladio agreed.

“So…” Cor tilted his head forward, waiting for Gladio to go on.

“Oh right,” Gladio snapped back to it.  “So uh…they kept walking into the woods, and they were already scared because of the footsteps…”

Gladio started to stutter, unsure of where he was headed when he looked right at Cor and noticed how intensely he was listening.

“And uh…they…uh.”

“This is the best part,” he fought through it.  The least he could do was tell the story properly.

“One of his buddies heard a loud thud come from somewhere behind them.  And again, instead of being smart and getting the hell out of there, they walked toward the noise.  But of course, Pelna looks through the trees again and sees the weird white orb thing.  But this time it looks like it’s coming towards them and everyone else can see it too.”

Gladio paused again, partly to see if Cor was still interested.  There was a slight crease to the older man’s brow that was lit up by the fading fire but Gladio couldn’t tell much more than that.

“Then there’s this gust of wind, and it hadn’t been windy at all that night.  So one of the other guys makes the mistake of looking behind them and there’s just…straight up a ghost woman.  And it’s so dark she’s literally glowing bright white.”

As the story was about to reach its climax, Gladio became much more animated, gesturing with his hands as he spoke.

“So she starts to move towards them, but she’s not walking or moving normally.  She’s bent over at an angle and moving _so_ slowly.  And they even though she was pretty much glowing, they still couldn’t see her face.  And Pelna looked down and she had legs but…no feet.  They just kind of faded out like she was floating in the darkness.” 

“So of course, they finally bolt.  And Pelna said even while they were running out of there they heard her following them, but she was keeping up with them. Even though she was moving like a freaking zombie back there, something was running close behind them.  And they heard heavy breathing and weird disembodied noises and everything.”

“Hmm, so the classic lady in the woods experience…”  Cor nodded, a slight smile on his face.

“All she needed was a white dress, I guess?”  Gladio joked.

Cor laughed, to Gladio’s surprise.

“So do you think you’ll go check it out?”  Gladio asked.  After all that storytelling, having a normal conversation with Cor wasn’t as daunting as it had once seemed.

“Maybe,” Cor pondered.  “Do you think you’d be up to tag along?”

“Uh…” Gladio paused.  “Sorry sir, I just like ghost stories.  I’m not chancing anything following me back home.”

“Then you’re already a smarter man than me,” the older man laughed.

“Speaking of stories…” Cor began, “did you know the library in the Citadel is haunted?”

“No, I did not, sir.”  Gladio’s ears perked up.

Gladio thought he knew of every legend involving the Crown City, but he hadn’t heard anything about the library before.  He leaned in closer to hear Cor better as he started telling him a story that involved an ex-librarian, secret passageways, and shadows in the corner of his eyes. 

There could be no better way to spend the rest of an evening in the woods than listening to new ghost stories around a dying campfire.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading if you made it this far :3


End file.
